Former Hab Carol Vadnais dead at age 68

Former Canadien Carol Vadnais died Sunday morning at age 68 after a battle with cancer.

Vadnais, a defenceman, played for the Montreal Junior Canadiens before making his NHL debut in 1966-67 with the Canadiens. He was part of the Canadiens during their 1967-68 Stanley Cup season before being claimed by the Oakland Seals in the June 1968 intraleague draft. Vadnais, a six-time NHL all-star, would also play for the Boston Bruins, winning his second Cup in 1972, and New York Rangers before finishing his career with the New Jersey Devils in 1982-83.

In 1,087 career regular-season games, Vadnais had 169 goals and 418 assists for 587 points.

Vadnais coached the Verdun Junior Canadiens during the 1986-87 season and later worked as a scout for the Canadiens.

Our thoughts and prayers should be for his family…he wore the uni with pride and was a good d’man (who, if I vaguely recollect, was offensively gifted and @ the same time was fairly gifted @ the fine art of looking after himself and took no guff from anyone)…reminiscent (to a degeee) of Guy Lapointe

One of many excellent players who had a nice career after being unable to crack a stacked Canadiens roster in the seventies. Rogatien Vachon, Mickey Redmond, there were so many who as a kid I found out had once been Canadiens property.

I used to wonder what if we’d have kept him, would we have talked about a Fantastic Four instead of a Big Three.

Absolutely…I do believe him to have been of a similar caliber and (who knows?) if things would have worked out differently, the result could very well have been the rounding out of the best top 4 D in history.